


Resting

by Zoya113



Category: Hatchetfield Universe - Team StarKid
Genre: give this girl a break, sort of a sickfic but not quite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 20:47:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30078120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya113/pseuds/Zoya113
Summary: Zoey handles things for Nora
Relationships: Nora & Zoey (The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Resting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LetMePukeInYourMouthEm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LetMePukeInYourMouthEm/gifts).



As much as Zoey and Deb seemed to warn her she didn’t take enough time for herself and her own hobbies, Nora didn’t believe it was as big a problem as they made it out to be - matter of fact there was a movie she had been meaning to get around to for a while that was playing this evening and she was up late enough to catch it while she worked through some files and that was pretty decent for a relaxing evening, or morning she supposed, it was about 3AM after all. 

Although she couldn’t tell if it was the lack of sleep or the poor lighting in the living room, but she could hardly keep her eyes open. Just after work today she had been hit with a terrible wave of exhaustion and ever since there had been a sharp feeling behind her eyes that made it hard to keep them open. 

The shitty movie sequel running on the TV was currently her only source of company this late into the night and also her only source of light. She didn’t want to wake Deb by playing it any louder, and she was working at a rate where she preferred the strain on her eyes from the poor lighting more than the idea of getting up to turn everything on, she was pretty close to wrapping up for the night and she didn’t want to waste those seconds for something that’d be done in about five minutes regardless anyways.

Still focused on the files in her lap she reached one hand out blindly for her coffee cup on the table, lifting it to her lips to take a drink only to find it was empty. She put it back down, glancing up for a second to grab the second cup on the table, only to find that empty as well. 

That was sort of weird, she had made herself a new cup not too long ago, only about- well, she couldn’t remember, but she didn’t think she had been at work all that long since she had gotten up for her last cup, maybe she had been at this longer than she had thought. 

Oh well, she was pretty much done with paperwork for this evening so she figured it would be best to skip the third cup just in case. She didn’t need to stay up much longer fortunately and if she could wrap up the paperwork before the film ended she could enjoy that for a while too.

She winced, the movie catching her attention for a second when there was a spike in the sound, but she had lost track of what was going on in the movie at this point. She had just been too focused on work. She probably wasn’t the best multitasker with this sort of stuff she had to realise, but her priorities were set at least, and work was more important that a night off. 

Besides if she finished early maybe she could have an hour or two for herself before she fell asleep. 

Nora blinked, her eyes staying shut for just a moment too long. She shook her head to try and brush off the sluggishness in her system that she was suddenly very aware of, she didn’t know where it had come from but it wasn’t quite like usual exhaustion, it felt heavy on her shoulders and made her rib cage feel tight. 

She grumbled, shaking her head again, shrugging her shoulders and rubbing a hand over her eyes. She squinted at the text on the paper which was suddenly making itself a lot harder to read than it had been seconds ago. 

She exhaled loudly, taking just a moment to collect herself. She only had a few more sheets of work to go through, and it was only about 3am. She didn’t expect to fall asleep for another hour or two at the least. 

Reluctantly, she placed the collection of papers in her lap down on the coffee table to finish in a moment, leaning back on the couch, her head finding a pillow. She could at least still focus on the last of this movie while she waited for this wave of tiredness to pass. And worse comes to worst she’d finish them off before work. 

The special effects were cheap to say the least, and as quite the experienced horror fan herself she didn’t find any of the movie’s scares thrilling enough to keep her awake or alert, and she let herself shut her eyes in between its slower scenes just to persuade the ache behind her eyes to stay away long enough for her to finish her work off and head to bed. 

But the feeling in her bones grew heavier, and her eyelids were no longer so easy to keep open. Even when she could hear the movies end credits rolling, the sound came through like it was at the other end of a tunnel - distant and unclear, and as much as she told herself she would get up in a minute to head to bed, it was always so much easier to stay on the couch for just another moment longer.

When she next opened her eyes, the first thing she noticed was the pain was still there, much duller but still heavy behind her eyes. Her joints were stiff and she couldn't quite feel her legs either. 

She jolted upright, one hand gripping the side of the couch tightly and she forced herself to sit up right. She squinted at the sun pouring in through the half-shut curtains and with a sinking feeling of dread she realised that it was not the first few rays of light, it was too bright for that. Pushing down a sick feeling she got up to pull the curtains back - outside the traffic had already lulled for the day, she didn’t have time to watch forever but just on a guess she had to say it was about eleven, maybe even midday if she wasn’t lucky. 

Even the TV was still playing from last night, it had moved on from the morning talk shows to some sort of midday drama she had never seen before because usually she was at work at this time. 

She would’ve gulped but her throat was incredibly dry. 

There was a sort of sway in her step when she hurried back to her room, and she passed it off as her body still waking up, pulling her uniform blouse off its hook to get dressed. 

She was too scared to check the time - if it was midday or even one in the afternoon she couldn’t imagine what sort of clean up aftermath there would have to be for Beanies. She wasn’t there to open in, and the lack of notice would be an inconvenience to customers not to mention she’d have to explain to her employees what had happened. ‘Over sleeping’ was not a good excuse in business, especially not as the owner. It wasn’t going to go down well that was for sure. 

Maybe she was lucky though and it wasn’t any later than ten or eleven and she hadn’t totally missed morning business, she’d have to count in the tank to business that a day off would do for the funds just for missing a couple of hours. 

Ugh. God. How much worse this could get she didn’t know, there were already so many avenues of thought she hadn’t explored most primarily the thought forcing itself into her head was why hadn’t Deb woken her up? If Deb had overslept school too she might not be well, and as she was finishing buttoning up her shirt she hurried back over to Deb’s room, knocking on the door with her knuckles only for there to be no response.

She opened the door to peer in only to find it empty, and lost no time turning around to snatch the unfinished paperwork up off the table. Deb must’ve already left for school, she hoped she had made it on time without Nora to wake her, she’d have to text her to check in once she had a spare minute. Usually she saw her off to school so she was a bit lost about what was happening today, and she didn’t like that feeling.

Of course she wanted to make a coffee before she left, but she was late enough and missing out was the consequence for making a dumb mistake like oversleeping. She locked up her apartment, clutching onto the staircase tightly. She still couldn’t quite feel her legs and as if to betray her they were continuing to shake.

She really wished the day wasn’t against her, it seemed like it was just going to be one of those bad, bad days, but time was going to move forward whether she liked it or not and she couldn’t restart the day.

But as she came in through the back door she realised something was off - not that she was expecting Beanies to be in a state of ruin or for angry rioters to be knocking the door down to get their coffee, but it was just normal. It felt like any other day matter of fact.

The overhead lights were on, and the familiar buzz of the coffee machines was an ever present comfort downstairs. Even the sacks of coffee beans she had left out on the breakroom table to refill the machine hoppers with had been tucked back into their shelves, already handled. 

She found herself standing cluelessly in the middle of the backroom, glancing around at the half empty apron hook and the unboxed restocks laid out across the table. 

Things seemed perfectly fine.

She held her papers close to her chest, and she could feel her breathing coming through ragged, and took a moment to try and catch it.

She pushed open the door to the cafe, biting her lip as she braced herself for the damage, only to find once more that everything was alright.

Zoey was serving drinks to customer’s tables, and Emma, looking ever tired to be here, was cutting up fresh fruit for a smoothie.

“Good morning,” she stammered, because that was all she could bring herself to say. She didn’t know what the situation was, or what the other two were expecting from her.

Emma glanced up, giving a confused nod as she glanced at the time which Nora was still refusing to check. “Hi,” she said. “Everything’s in order.”

“How’d you get in here?” She had to ask, since she knew Emma didn’t have the keys to the front door.

She shrugged. “Front door?” She answered. “Zoey opened.”

At the sound of her name, Zoey looked up from the customer she was making some brief conversation with, and quickly excused herself to come over.

“You don’t look very well,” Emma murmured to her, not with any ill-will, it was more of just a statement. 

“Hm?” but she didn’t quite hear it because Emma had dumped the chopped fruit into the blender and turned it on.

“Good morning!” Zoey had to raise her voice over the blender but she placed a hand on Nora’s arm to guide her back around into the break room where the sound was more muffled. “Are you okay?”

The atmosphere in Beanies today was quiet, entirely calm, aside from the blender of course which was sort of giving her a headache, it forced her to realise just how fast her heart was racing. Her throat felt dry and now that she was standing still she had to realise her head was sort of spinning, and her legs were still shaky. “I’m so sorry I’m late,” not that she knew how late yet, her hand hovered over Zoey’s arm where she was still supporting Nora, looking around for something she could do to help or sort out as to not waste anymore time. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine!” She confirmed. “Deb gave me the keys when I got here this morning, she said you were still asleep.”

She couldn’t hold back a sigh of relief that everything had gone fine this morning with opening up, at least then the problem was only between her and her employees. “I was scheduled this morning, I’m sorry, was it busy? Did you two get through okay?” 

“You schedule yourself just about every day, Nora,” Zoey shook her head, continuing to just lead her over to the couch. “You work so hard all the time. We only opened two hours ago, if I wasn’t working today I probably wouldn’t be up for another two or three hours, honestly,” she laughed at her own expense. 

“Two hours?” It was only ten, that was good, better than midday, still not the best though, and despite the extra hours of sleep she didn’t feel well rested at all. Aside from the general bone aches that came from falling asleep on the couch there was still that terrible pain behind her eyes that was not going away. Every time she blinked she thought she was just going to fall asleep, her eyes weren’t usually this heavy. “I haven’t had my coffee yet.” That would be the case. “Zoey, why don’t you go take your break? I’ll handle the floor,” she was about to turn back to head out herself but her friend spoke up before she could. 

“Emma and I have it totally covered! It isn’t too busy today, take a seat, Nora.”

She only fell onto the couch because she figured it would give her legs a moment to get themselves in order and stop shaking. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she apologised again, still a bit in disbelief that she had let this all happen. 

“No, no, don’t apologise, you weren’t up too late were you?” 

“I think I fell asleep at 3,” she confessed, which was rather early for her usually. She didn’t know what she was so tired for then. She rubbed a hand to her eyes, just to try and get the ache to go away. 

“It’s not bad to take a day off if you need it,” Zoey assured her. “Are you okay?” 

“I know but If I’m going to take a day off I should at least schedule it in,” she pinched the bridge of her nose just to try and ease away her headache. 

“It’s not easy to predict when you’re gonna be sick though,” Zoey frowned, reaching out a hand to take the paperwork from Nora that she was still holding onto tightly. “You let me and Emma call in last minute all the time.” 

“Yes well I wouldn’t want you working if you aren’t feeling well though,” she explained. “I’ve just overslept, I’m fine I just don’t know how that happened,” she waved a hand dismissively, shaking her head. 

“Well I don’t think it should be any different for you,” Zoey shook her head too. “If you need a break, you can take one. We’ve got it all under control. It won’t hurt. It’ll be nice for you.” 

“Zoey,” she went to stand up but didn’t really make it much further than putting a hand on the armrest, “I know resting is important but it’d be unprofessional, I just need to wake up a bit, I’m not incapable of working today.”

“You’re sick, Nora,” Zoey finally pointed out, her voice not mean but firm enough to make Nora stop and connect the dots. 

Her shoulders slumped, and she sunk into her chair. She didn’t want to be sick, she wanted to get the day’s work done. “It’s not too bad, I can-“ she didn’t know what she could or couldn’t do actually. She couldn’t really make coffee or handle the food if she wasn’t well, but that shouldn’t stop her from restocking, or doing the paperwork. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay Nora, it had to happen some time or another with how much you work,” she didn’t want her to think it was a big deal. “You just sit down okay? If you really want to work you can do it at your own pace back here, but please don’t push yourself, Nora,” it wasn’t quite a plea but it was obvious she was worried. 

She placed her paperwork back down on the break room table within Nora’s reach. “Why don’t you just start small, okay? We’ll see how you feel afterwards if you’d prefer, but I think you do need to sit down for a moment, man,” she gave a sort of tense laugh at the end just to show she didn’t want to push too much. “I’ll go make you a drink.”

“Oh, coffee?” That would do the trick.

“No, peppermint tea. It’s good for headaches,” she offered her a smile and with that she headed back for the door. “Just sit down okay? Have a rest, I think you deserve one.”


End file.
